Lest We Forget

Lest we forget – Massacres of Tamils 1956 ­2002
Kathirgamarasa a resident says,
“I had many friends in the area where the helicopters were flying low. We wanted
to go there, but it was impossible. The helicopters landed a quarter of a mile from
my home. My brother-in-law (Sakthivel alias Mahan) was living in a house one mile
from my home. For two hours the helicopters were flying and there were gun shot
sounds. When the activities of the army appeared to have stopped, a friend and I
started walking that way.
We saw another friend, 22 year old Rasan, returning after tapping toddy with his
vessel. His home was in the area where the helicopters had landed. I told him it is
not safe to go. He did not listen to me and proceeded towards his house. The army
shot him on his way to home. He must have been the first to be shot by the army.
Rasan is originally from Nunavil and his wife is from Piramanthanaru. I saw
Rasan’s vessel by the side of the road. I could also see the shoe marks of the army
(no one in the village wore covered shoes like the army). I became suspicious. I saw
Rasan’s body in front of a temple among the bushes.
We saw shoe marks walking in both directions and we concluded that the army
must have gone back. We started to walk towards the 40 th Canal. We saw bodies of
Sivapatham, Kamini, Sathyalingam, Kanesamoorthy, Selvarasa, Ramasamy, and
Yogarasa as we walked. We walked on to inform the families. They would not come
out due to fear.
I wanted to go and see my brother-in-law, Mahan, but there was some suspicion
that the army may have camped there. I hesitated for a while about what to do next
and then I proceeded towards my brother-in-law’s house. I met Anton on the way.
Anton told me what had happened. Mahan was working in a joint farm with three
others, Nagappar Sathyalingam (Kanna), Vallipuram Ganesamoorthy (Appan) and
Vallipuram Vivekananthan (Ananthan). Appan and Ananthan are brothers. All four
of them were living in one house and doing farming. They were all dead. We both
walked on.
We saw a house that had been burnt together with the vehicle parked inside. We
saw two more bodies. One was that of Sathyaseelan and I cannot remember the
name of the other one. The army had arrested a person named Pakyam and was
taking him with them. When they had come across Sathyaseelan, they had taken
two-thousand rupees from his pocket and his expensive (to Sathyaseelan’s means)
wristwatch and chased him away. Sathyaseelan being poor and unable to accept
the huge loss decided to go back to ask for his possessions from the army. The army
shot him dead. They shot Pakyam and left his body in the forest. No one knew until
people started looking and the smell of the decaying body became noticeable.
I took a tractor machine belonging to one of the villagers to move the bodies to
their family home. One man Peran was badly wounded. We changed his clothes and
gave him first aid. Then Anton and others carried him home to Yakkachchi twenty
miles away by foot through lakes. I gave the bodies to the families and finally took
the body of my brother-in-law, Mahan, home.”
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Report by NESOHR,
Information Collected by SNE
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